Tourist Places To Visit In St Ives

On the Coast of Celtic Sea, is the beachside town of St Ives which isn’t just a community but also a port in Cornwall. Located to Camborne’s west and Penzance’s north side, St Ives was originally a fishing town that flourished on the trade, however, owing to a shift in the business community, it is now mainly a famous coastal resort, which has also earned its repute as one of the best seaside towns in the UK, from the British Travel Awards two years in a row, i.e., in 2010 and 2011.

The harbor at St Ives is protected by a headland (St Ives Island) and Smeaton’s Pier, where the streets are jagged and tapered, while the wider lanes in the new parts of the town are elevated. St Ives thrives on its beaches like the surfing beach of Porthmeor, a tiny sandy bay of Porthgwidden, Porthminster & Harbor. With an oceanic climate, the warmest summers and mildest of winters, St Ives is a crowd puller and also receives a considerable amount of sunshine every year, higher than the national average! Here’s a snapshot of the tourist places you can visit in St Ives.

One of the best sights that greet you on arrival at St Ives is the arced golden sand of Porthminster Beach, just moments away from the railway station and one of Cornwall’s luxury beaches. Supported by an inclining lush green peninsula, sprinkled with a series of stylish Edwardian Villas on one end, St Ives is backed by a forested headland on the other end, around the Carbis Bay. 

Supported by mounds of sand, trussed with wild grass, the stunning beach of Gwithian Towans is another vibrant sight of windsurfers, kites and water blokarts. During the low tides, you can see a large expanse of sand and enjoy massive rock pools and caves that the entire family can explore through. There is also the Porthmeor Beach, with a lively ambiance, creative array of cocktails and outdoor dining. It is one of the top 5 beaches in Cornwall to have earned the Blue Flag award in terms of the quality of water, education, safety & upkeep of the environment. 

The Barbara Hepworth Museum & Sculpture Garden is a 20th-century marvel preserved by St Ives, where the works and memories of Barbara Hepworth lie, exhibiting 26 years of her labors. The Trewyn Studio that was purchased by Barbara in 1949 is a typical stone house at St Ives and most of the rooms in that space are displayed as she left them. With a huge variety of work that is permanently on exhibition, the featured sculptures in stone, wood & bronze, especially those in the isolated garden were among her favorites, in addition to the archives, paintings and drawings.

Other museums worth visiting include the St Ives Museum and the Tate St Ives - an art gallery that displays works of the modern British talent pertaining to St Ives.

Located to the east of St Ives Bay, West Cornwall and facing the Atlantic Ocean, Godrevy is a popular spot within the walkers’ and surfing communities. The Godrevy Head is a good walk during spring with a rich grassland of wildflowers and noisy fulmars nesting on the clifftops. It has a lighthouse that’s been looked after by Trinity House. Built in 1858-59 on the island, roughly 300m off the Godrevy Head, the lighthouse marks a stone reef that has been a shipping hazard for decades, provoking a need for a lighthouse, which only came about after the loss of SS Nile- an iron screw steamer and all 40 people on board.

The lighthouse was initially manned by two people at a time and then was reorganized & converted to a solar-powered lighthouse in 1995, which was then further simplified and replaced with an LED light affixed atop a steel platform on the rocks nearby. 

The oldest burial ground set atop an exposed hill that overlooks the Porthmeor Beach, the Barnoon Cemetry is worth a visit for a little more than spectacular sights that include beautifully engraved tombstones and intriguing Victorian graves. Laid out in 1857 the cemetery has two oratories arranged, one’s back to the other, each with a tiny bell-cote with a single bell, like a mirror image of one another. The Cemetry is accessible from the harbor to the west of Tate St Ives and is frequented for guided ghost walks.

A Parish Church in the Church of England, built in honor of Saint La of Cornwall (an Irish Saint from 5^th/6^th century), the St Ives Parish Church is a grade I listed construction. Made of granite and over 80ft high four stages, the church is massive and built in a Devonian style, with the outer aisle in the south added by the Trenwith family, carved with 4 angels with Shields. A decorated structure with an imposing tower, the construct is worthy of its apostolic architecture.

An ordinary one room granite construct atop St Ives Island, St Nicholas Chapel is an ancient cape citadel and heaven for bird-watching enthusiasts! Used as a base to lookout for smugglers by Preventative Men, dating back to the medieval era, the Chapel fell victim to neglect as a War Office Storage space and destroyed partially in 1904, but was restored in 1911 owing to a public outcry.

A Romano British and late Iron Age village with 8-10 patio houses, the Chysauster Ancient Village in Cornwall is looked after by the English Heritage. Initially occupied for nearly 2000 years, the village included farmers who grew cereal crops in fields adjoining the village, in addition to goats and pigs. With houses made of stone-walled farmsteads, the courtyard houses in the village were seen only on the Isles of Scilly or the peninsula at Land’s End. The best places to explore here are the rugged surroundings, the landscapes and the glorious expanse of bluebells in spring.

A tiny tidal island in Mount Bay, St Michael’s Mount is a civil community associated with the Marazion town by artificial boardwalks of granite quarried stones and can be passed through during low or mid tides. In terms of its ancient past, St Michael’s mount was a Cornish equivalent of Mont Saint Michel in France (Normandy) and is one of the 43 tidal islands that are unbridged, walkable from mainland Britain. St Michael’s Chapel is a 15th-century construct with a beleaguered tower, a portion of which is a tiny tower that served to guide ships. Another place of interest on the island is the underground rail track which is till date used to transport goods to the castle from the harbor and was built in 1900 by miners.